This summer, student from Graduate school of Landscape Architecture, Seoul National University visited Kyodong Island with sound artist ByungJun Kwon. The project is to support unification. The students had exciting experience of using professional recorders and collecting sounds by the sound artist for the first time. We collected the the moments by recording the sound. We are now releasing the sound landscape of the island in the city center of Seoul. Beyond the time and space, it is a journey to an isolated island in the West Sea, where they face the realities of division.

Kyodong Island is located just below the military demarcation line in the neighbourhood of the Han River Estuary. The entire island is located in a civilian controlled area. It is only 4km away from North Korea, so if you go up to a high point, you can even see North Korea’s Yeonpyeong plains across the sea. During the Korean War, the island was where a lot of Hwanghae refugees had come down and missed their home town. Now, the 64th anniversary of the ceasefire, the Kyodong island is called the Island of Peace and attracts a great deal of attention from people. However, the sea of Kyodong Island is still beyond the fence line, and we still hear the warning broadcast to North Korea from the Island.

The students recorded the lost part of Kyodong Island and the peaceful moment of today. They only focused on the sound with their eyes closed. The students then heard the sound of history of the war and division. It was the sound of human suffering seeking for the peace. Students realized the reality of the Korean division that we all had forgotten. Student all took time to think about the way to go forward, wishing and hoping that this project could be a seed for a peace on the Korean peninsula.

This presentation is to share the idea of developing the show for the exhibition scheduled from 17 November to 3 December at Art Sonje Center. We are hoping to discuss the opinions and impression of today’s show.

* Graduate school of Landscape Architecture, Seoul National University: Kyung-jin Zoh, Jina Kim, Hansol Cho, In Je Lee, Youn-a Lee, Jeewon Jung, Shiwoong Yang, Beomtaec Lim, Yeseul Yoo, Yelin Jeylin Lee